mvp 78

Less sour than Werth, Lee, Soriano.

Me no read good... In that case, I really hope Salty gets a real chance. Learning from Tek is a great opportunity for him and with this lineup, there'll be little to no pressure on him to produce right away. I just hope Beckett can learn to eventually pitch without his binkey.

He also had a mancrush on Lugo for a long time until Lugo actually started playing here. With Martin, the grass isn't greener. Stay away.

Well, I wasn't selected to attend, but I went as a tagalong with two of my friends. We got to Fenway right before 10 in hopes that we'd be able to see Crawford. Unfortunately, that meant my friend's wrist band was numbered fairly high so there was going to be a long wait until we were called for tickets. Anyway, it was a cool event to go to. Wally and Paws (the PawSox mascot) were there along with the mascots for the Spinners and BC. Santa was there in a Sox hat taking pictures with everyone. Jason Varitek was interviewed by the PA announcer Carl Beane. The interview was fairly bland an not memorable. Tek was then available for autographs if you waited in a massive line. Carl Crawford followed with an interview that occured right after his press conference. His interview was a little better. He's excited to play against Carlos Pena when he comes to town with the Cubs. He said his son was a big Sox fan and Carl didn't realize that until he signed. He didn't stick around for autographs. Afterwards, Daniel Nava was interviewed to little fanfare. Fans asked a few questions. I was going to ask a question about when he'll finally get his 2nd homerun and if he was pressing at all over his next 187 ABs, but decided better of it. The EMC club is pretty cool. All the Sox HOF plaques and "memorable moment" plaques line the wall. All of the CY trophies were attached to the wall next to some of the HOF plaques. Some pink hat gargoyle was leaning up against the Lonborg CY not knowing what it was, or just not caring. There were a bunch of gold gloves sitting in a case in the EMC club. I'm not sure if it was a complete set or not. All the MVP awards were in there as well. The WS trophies from 04 and 07 were down the hall. If you wanted your picture taken professionally it was $22, but they allowed you to use your own camera as well. There was a raffle upstairs ($5 buy in) for a bunch of signed jerseys and balls (Reddick, VMart, Baldelli, Cameron, Scutaro, Oki), but not too much other stuff going on except for the mascots walking around. The food wasn't from Aramark, so the dogs weren't Fenway Franks. We ended up getting ticket packs online long before our number was called, so we decided to leave and check out the "Great Fenway Yard Sale." On the way down to the outfield concourse, we were allowed to walk around the Monster seats, which was cool for some of the people who hadn't been up there before. The yard sale was basically the Filene's Basement of Red Sox items. There were two huge crates filled with bricks. If you bought a bag for $20, you could fill it with one brick and whatever else was in random boxes on the concourse. The other boxes had used jerseys (reds, greens, greys, and home whites) with a wide assortment of past Sox players for $65-$75. Since I'm not a Jason Shiell fan, I decided to pass. There were also media guides from the past 25 years, baseballs that were used as decorations, and other random items. You could even buy concourse tv's and other media equipment for $10-$25. Things I didn't see: the closed off yard sale room with individually priced items and the batting cages. Apparently, you could take batting practice if you waited around long enough to have your number called for tickets. Since we had already purchased tickets online while we were waiting, we decided it wasn't really worth the wait. All in all, it was a fun, free event. I had no real expectations of what it was all about since I had never been before. Oh, walked into Fenway right before us for the Crawford press conference. I should have given him a chop block when I had the chance...

If Martin comes cheap and only plays part time, I'm ok with the pickup. Injuries have killed this guy to the point the Dodgers wanted to put him at 3rd but figured Blake and whoever else would give them better production. I don't see him as ever being a fulltime guy again. Kiss goodbye to the 2008 stats and allstar appearances (not that those really matter). The Dodgers pitched well with him behind the plate, but that was more due to their division than anything else. I guess I'm not understanding the fascination. He's not much of an upgrade over a cheaper Salty. Spend the $$$ on the bullpen and Bill Hall instead.

Russell Martin has sucked the past two years and there's no sign of him turning it around. If you want a .250 hitter with no pop, at least make sure he's good defensively. The advanced stats don't look any better. Everyone, please put your RuMart boners away.

The 2010 Sox had little personality. This should help the 2011 Sox.

Gammons never said that they were going to walk away and settle for signing Werth. You're reading into it too much.

Which is why you couldn't expect jack if you traded him.

Except that your version is different than Gammons...

The leap in logic from "they want Werth and Agon" to "they were ready to walk away from Agon to only get Werth" is shakey at best and not supported at all in example's post.

I'm not buying this in the least. This theory just plays to your anti-FO agenda.

POS Scutaro is the opening day SS.

I'm a no go on two moves: getting RuMart and moving POS Scutaro. Living in LA for the past few years, I got to see plenty of RuMart's upside and downside. The big problem is that he's ok defensively, but has really lost something offensively (overuse, injuries). IMO he's not much of an upgrade over what the Sox have now. Scutaro put up the same numbers as Jeter last year. Do I want to see more Lowrie? Sure, but he'll fill in admirably at all IF positions. Inevitably, someone will get hurt. Lowrie is sure to get some decent playing time and his development won't be hindered.

Wait, the movie theatre wasn't really on fire and everyone needed to just calm down and be patient??? What a novel concept!

Oh hell no. No Coco Crap please...

Was he racist? Probably. Should he be compared to Hitler? No. That was EnFuego's post, not mine. Hitler comparisons are overused and generally in poor taste (see Obama with Hitler stache). Baseball racism was institutionalized, but it took the Sox way too long to move past it. Was it because of Yawkey, Cronin, or the racial disharmony in Boston at the time? We can't say for sure, but we can make an educated guess.

Hey, if people want to look at Tom Yawkey through rose-colored glasses, that's fine by me. I'm sure he was a wonderful person, that doesn't preclude the Sox from having a smidgen of racism in its history. When did they integrate again? Last? Ok, then if it wasn't racism behind these decisions it was clearly a case of horrible management. As with any "oganization" the tone is set from the top and comes straight from ownership. To blame the GMs solely is just silly and doesn't show much critical thinking. Anyway, I don't want to bicker about something none of us could know for sure. I'm just glad the Agon situation is on the up and up.

Yawkey was a bit more prejudiced than others of his day. Think Willie Mays would've looked good in a Sox uni?

IkantSpell2011

Even racists can be generous and caring.